World Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) provides digital data transmission over the wires of a telephone network. World DSL is regularly updated with new software releases that provide additional features and functionality. Downloading these upgrades can be time consuming, costly, and often require upgrading each unit within a span. One method of upgrading a unit is achieved by visiting the physical location of each unit and upgrading the unit while present. The unit is physically removed from its housing slot, the memory is removed and reprogrammed with a new software version, and the upgraded unit is returned to its slot. An employee of the telephone company typically has to visit the location, which are often down manholes.
Another method of upgrading remote units is to download the new software version upgrades from a central office site via a DSL Embedded Operations Channel (EOC). EOC is a small amount of bandwidth defined in the DSL standard that is allocated with the DSL frame to create a virtual channel. However, downloading updates over DSL EOC is prohibitively slow, as the EOC channel runs at less than 4 Kbps and object files can be greater than 1 Megabyte (MB). Therefore, physically visiting each unit and upgrading the unit while present or downloading the upgrades over DSL EOC is time consuming and costly.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for a faster download mechanism on the SHDSL data path.